LONG ISLAND JOURNAL

LONG ISLAND JOURNAL; At 75, Jones Beach, Past, Present and Future

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

Published: August 15, 2004

FRANK KOLE lay in his favorite oceanfront position: eyes closed, flat on his back on a towel-draped lounge chair just to the east of the main lifeguard stand at Field 6 at Jones Beach State Park. Yards in front of him the waves of the Atlantic Ocean lapped the shore.

''Swim, kibitz and basically just relax,'' Mr. Kole said as an ocean breeze rippled over his tanned, leathery skin. ''It's a rejuvenating thing.''

Sunny days, cloudy days, Mr. Kole, 58, is a Jones Beach die-hard. He has been coming all the way from Port Chester to this spit of sand every summer weekend since he was 16.

''My choice is right here,'' said Mr. Kole, who even heads to the beach weekdays when he can get away from his advertising specialties job. ''It's the best place around. I am reinforced that it has never changed in all these years.''

Field 6 is the easternmost section of the park, but with the shortest walk from the parking lot to the high tide line, its parking lot has long been the one that fills up first. On a sunny day folks get there early or late or not at all.

By 7:30 every weekend morning and weekdays after work, Linda Tino, 54, of Wantagh parks her folding chair at Field 6. She smears on suntan lotion, reads a book and watches the people parade for four or five hours.

''It's peaceful and quiet and I can think,'' Ms. Tino said. ''I just sit here and relax.''

Since it opened 75 years ago this month, the giant beach park has been an oceanfront pleasure ground for fun- and sun-seekers and those who just want to get away from it all in the company of thousands. And no group gets away more regularly than the people known as the concretions, the retiree-dominated bunch who arrive early and unfold their chairs on the concrete patio by the Field 6 concession stand.

Thomas William Howeth, 79, of East Moriches arrives at Field 6 every morning at 7 a.m., folding chair and a bagel in hand. Deeply bronzed, he doesn't bother applying suntan lotion. ''I don't like the feeling of it,'' Mr. Howeth said.

But it's the sharing of memories, not a tan, that draws him to the patio. While living in Wantagh for 35 years, Mr. Howeth went to Jones Beach every weekend with wife and children.

''This is what I need because I yak,'' said Mr. Howeth, now a widower. ''This is a savior to me. I come home happy and full of great thoughts.''

Leonard Altman is a 76-year-old concretion from Westbury. ''We sit here and schmooze,'' he said. ''We form a little circle here and solve all the world's problems. When you get past 70 or 60, you don't like walking on sand, and I guess it's closer to the bathroom.''

With a wide, winding boardwalk, turreted bathhouses, a beach that seems to stretch forever and six and a half miles of pristine Atlantic coastline, the 2,413-acre park was the crown jewel of Robert Moses' vision of a vast system of parks and parkways to fill the leisure needs of the quickly expanding metropolitan area.

''When he developed this park, he really wanted to present an experience of going away, of taking a cruise, of going to a resort,'' said Bernadette Castro, the state parks commissioner. The boardwalk still has the festive nautical feel, from the signal flags on the ship's mast flagpole on the central mall to the trash baskets hidden in ventilator funnels. Metal silhouette signs and original-style benches were recently replaced but the life preserver-shaped ash trays along the railings are long gone.

''We want to preserve it the way he envisioned,'' Ms. Castro said, alluding to Moses and a recent Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities study that lamented the loss of historic architectural details like the mahogany top on the cruise-liner-style boardwalk railing and the reflecting pools along Ocean Parkway, the park's traffic artery.

The commissioner said she would nominate Jones Beach to the state and national registers for historic preservation, a designation she hopes to receive before the end of the anniversary year. Additionally, Ms. Castro said, by the end of 2006, the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation will develop and complete a master plan for Jones Beach encompassing environmental protection, historic preservation and recreational demands in a public-private partnership.

Already well preserved is Reggie Jones, at 77 the oldest lifeguard at Jones Beach. Mr. Jones has been a sentinel of summer for 61 years. From his wooden lifeguard tower near the East Bathhouse at Field 5, the crowds are not the same.

''When I started here there was no air-conditioning, no backyard pools,'' Mr. Jones recalled. ''Everything was closed on Sundays -- the blue laws -- and most families had one car and there were no downtown shopping malls. For 25 cents you got in the car and took the kids to the beach. This was the poor man's Riviera.''

In those days, Mr. Jones, of Bellmore, wore the itchy one-piece woolen lifeguard suit that he modeled for the birthday bash, instead of the Tommy Hilfiger trunks that are today's standard issue.

Fashions have indeed changed. ''The girls are wearing dental floss and they call them bathing suits,'' Mr. Jones said. ''When I started they wore dresses, practically.''